Gendering the memory of iron: Theft,lineage,and African metallurgists in the Atlantic world

Abstract

In the 1980s, the archaeologist Merrick Posnansky implored Africa-trained scholars to investigate the Caribbean and use their training to reframe the construction of the African diasporic experience. This paper is based on research that responded to Posnansky’s challenge. Employing archaeology, community-based fieldwork, oral traditions, gender analysis, and archival sources on both sides of the Atlantic, the paper explores the history of African metallurgy, including the author’s personal research experiences in West Africa and the Caribbean. It argues for incorporating the knowledge and skills of African people into a global history of iron technology. It demonstrates how the spatial and social characteristics of iron smelting and refinement have implications for the unfolding of late eighteenth-century forging in Jamaica and industrial growth in other parts of the Atlantic world. While ideas and knowledge operated in the meanings and metaphors found within both material and unseen realms, the eventual reconceptualization of this intertwined past must remain grounded in claims that can be supported by evidence. Connecting kitchens and crucibles, the study argues for an extended family of technological history. Just as understanding the global history of iron production requires attention to Africa, the inverse is simultaneously true: Africa and its history are firmly integrated in global history, including the history of the industrial revolution.